Anne Sexton

In Memoriam - Poem by Anne Sexton

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In Memoriam

What's missing is the eyeballsin each of us, but it doesn't matterbecause you've got the bucks, the bucks, the bucks.You let me touch them, fondle the green faceslick at their numbers and it lets you bemy 'Daddy!' 'Daddy!' and though I fought all alonewith molesters and crooks, I knew your moneywould save me, your courage, your 'I've hadconsiderable experience as a soldier…fighting to win millions for myself, it's true.But I did win,' and me praying for 'our men out there'just made it okay to be an orphan whose blood was no one's,whose curls were hung up on a wire machine and electrified,while you built and unbuilt intrigues called nations,and did in the bad ones, always, always,and always came at my perils, the black Christs of childhood,always came when my heart stood naked in the streetand they threw apples at it or twelve-day-old-dead-fish.

'Daddy!' 'Daddy,' we all won that war,when you sang me the money songsAnnie, Annie you sangand I knew you drove a pure gold carand put diamonds in you cokefor the crunchy sound, the adorable soundand the moon too was in your portfolio,as well as the ocean with its sleepy dead.And I was always brave, wasn't I?I never bled?I never saw a man expose himself.No. No.I never saw a drunkard in his blubber.I never let lightning go in one car and out the other.And all the men out there were never to come.Never, like a deluge, to swim over my breastsand lay their lamps in my insides.No. No.Just me and my 'Daddy'and his tempestuous bucksrolling in them like corn flakesand only the bad ones died.

But I died yesterday,'Daddy,' I died,swallowing the Nazi-Jap animaland it won't get outit keeps knocking at my eyes,my big orphan eyes,kicking! Until eyeballs pop outand even my dog puts up his four feetand lets goof his military secretwith his big red tongueflying up and downlike yours should have